Posted
by
Roblimo
on Thursday September 12, 2013 @01:18PM
from the it's-only-a-smart-phone-but-I-like-it dept.

Tech journalist Ron Miller (not a relative) wrote a piece titled Apple has a lot in common with The Rolling Stones, based on the song It's Only Rock 'N' Roll (But I Like It). In the article, Ron writes: "Much like the Rolling Stones, Apple has to get up on stage again and again and figure out a way to blow the audience away – and it’s not always easy." In fact, Apple's latest iPhone announcement seems to have been greeted with a massive "ho hum" instead of the frenzied interest some of their earlier product announcements have created. In today's video, Ron tells us why he thinks this is, and ruminates briefly about the future of Apple and what kinds of products might help people get excited about Apple again.

...and yet any new repackaging of their material is met with instant sellouts.

Sellouts yes, but those venues get smaller and smaller.

They got 60k at Comiskey when I was a kid and went to see 'em. Now, they get 10k at the United Center, and that's with every radio station in Chicago giving away tickets. Sure, it's a sellout, but it means less and less.

But now that I think about it, "sellout" is a good tag to use for any story about the Stones or Apple.

That's my point. And yet, every time a new iPhone comes out, inventories are depleted within a few weeks.

How do they "sell-out"? By turning you, the consumer, into the consumed. You're not buying their product, you're what they're selling. Their real customers are AT&T and advertisers and the strategic deals they have with their content providers.

Most people like shit, lowest common denominator is what made Zinga a billion dollar company. According to you, they must be better than almost every software house and in-house development teams on the planet.

Volume is no indicator of quality. Kia sell significantly more vehicles and spares than Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bugatti, Porsche and Morgan combined. I know which I'd rather not have.

People go to see the Stones because they think it's "kewl". Most of their real fans are in their 70s now, how many zimmer frames and how much grey hair do you see at their gigs?

According to who? As you agree with everything I said, does that mean you, Anonymous Coward, think Zynga must be better than almost every software house and dev team on the planet? Remind me never to enter a long jump contest against you.

For an irony and punning contest on the other hand, I think I've got you beat;)

Kia sell significantly more vehicles and spares than Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bugatti, Porsche and Morgan combined. I know which I'd rather not have.

I've driven a Cee'd - it's a pretty good car, about 95% as good as a Focus, and for less money. For those that don't have squintillions to spend on a car, a (new) Kia makes a surprisingly sensible choice.

In some ways true...but I think there's other reasons the Stones (no, not talking Fred and Wilma here) have been around so long.

In their heyday...they WERE just about the most important musicians in the world, they got world wide attention just for picking their nose, and they were one hell of a rock band. Look back at films like "Ladies and Gentlemen", and watch concerts from back in the '69-'74 era.

While they did try to start putting on stage shows that rivaled anything of their day, often they were simple lights, maybe a slightly whacky stage....but the draw was the performance. The Stones were a FUN band to listen and watch.When I see these old shows and then think about acts today that are lip sync'ing, using auto tune, and have no concept of improvising on stage, I literally cringe.

The Stones were sloppy often....hell, much of the time they didn't start or stop a song all together, but somehow they have a sort of magic that made the event something to see and hear. Where is that in bands over the past couple of decades? I just don't see it....

We've not seen much like that in a band with few exceptions...many of those exceptions being other bands in their day (Zeppelin, Floyd, etc).

The Stones, in addition to being one of the largest money making and popular touring bands ever....produced a legacy of music that is still strangely popular today. Why haven't we seen a large number of bands in the past 20-30 years that have done the same? What happened to music? Where are the songs from the 80's and 90's and 00's that will be the classic rock that will have the longevity the Stones' songs have had and somehow still do? I see young kids today wearing tshirts with the Stones tongue on them or AC/DC shirts, and surprisingly they KNOW the songs from these groups of *my* youth....

I'm saying and asking much of this, to just say that we've not really had bands that came along to supercede them and replace them, and hence their long professional lifetime.

I still get a rush when driving down the road, and something like the Stones' song "Gimme Shelter" comes on. I get shivers down my spine when I hear that chick Merry Clayton [wikipedia.org] singing with them hit the last note so hard that her voice breaks.

I miss songs that you can 'feel' the soul coming through the speakers.

Sorry, gramps, but you're really out of the loop. There is loads of music from the 1980s and 1990s that shows longevity (surprising to me, as I don't care for these particular acts). Michael Jackson continues to get lots of radio play and he sold out that comeback concert he planned before his death. Nirvana not only gets remembered by older columnists in mainstream news, but I've witnessed teenagers today expressing their admiration for Cobain. For younger listeners who prefer rock of a "progressive" sort,

Sorry, gramps, but you're really out of the loop. There is loads of music from the 1980s and 1990s that shows longevity (surprising to me, as I don't care for these particular acts). Michael Jackson continues to get lots of radio play and he sold out that comeback concert he planned before his death. Nirvana not only gets remembered by older columnists in mainstream news, but I've witnessed teenagers today expressing their admiration for Cobain. For younger listeners who prefer rock of a "progressive" sort,

I don't see them as great musicians, with a tight band that can play and improve ON stage.....they're too worried about messing up the dance choreography and timed out light show I guess to actually be able to just jam with each other and let the audience in to enjoy it.

Your problem is that you posit the idea of an objectively "great" musician and then assume that one of his/her attributes would be a capability to improvise.

I'd encourage you to read some ethnomusicology: whether improvisation is desirable

Most likely. Almost nobody under 25 can even understand what that means any more. This is the basic problem. There was a period much like the last 10 years in the 80s as well, that I described as 'soul-less pop trash'. There was a bit of a resurgence in the 90's, but less focused on instrumental or lyrical virtuosity. I think we're seeing another resurgence now, with more focus on instrumental virtuosity again, and a more acoustic lean.

What I mean was that if you listen to a fair bit of music, which most people do, you will eventually get to a point around age 25 (give or take) where almost everything you stumble on or get recommended seems like a rehash of something you've already heard, perhaps while you were doing something for one of the first times in your life that made the music seem more profound and soulful than it really was.

It's a lot more challenging to find music that comes to mean something to you when it is no longer almost

Where are the songs from the 80's and 90's and 00's that will be the classic rock that will have the longevity the Stones' songs have had and somehow still do?

It's not the songs. I would say that several songs from the 80's-00's were good enough to be classics. The issue is the music business that spits bands out if the hits aren't continuous from both single and album sales. The Stones had ten years of backing from their label, which lasted them through twenty more years of sucky releases before they beca

The '80s, back when MTV still played videos, is full of good stuff. Genesis, The Police, Talking Heads, etc. I've been building up an iTunes playlist that I call "80s radio" (because it includes some late '70s stuff that was still getting play), which is partly from my CDs bought back in the day, and the rest from CDs found at thrift stores. (all are rips from actual CDs)

But I'll agree about music (in the US market) since the '90s being pretty dire. Yes, there were a few good groups like Nirvana, but also

You kids make it sound like living for a long time is a character flaw or something. Trust me, your turn at being the ridiculously old guy is coming, and faster than you imagine.

Anyhow, my teenaged son and I were discussing the Stones just the other day. He said that he thought they had some good songs, but they were overrated. My response was no shit -- they were the *Rolling Stones*. Nobody could be as awesome they were supposed to be. But they put on a great show, and they had some good songs, what m

Just a FYI for anyone who liked MST3K, the creators have been uploading entire episodes to Youtube [youtube.com]. Just search MST3K. Some of my favs are Master Ninja and Gamera. Just this past month they uploaded a live riff track to Starship Troopers too. There's many many hours of entertainment right there. I have nostalgic memories of watching some MST3K, playing some Wing Commander, and then playing pencil and paper RPGs with my highschool buddies.

'they' are both just brands. Remember, it's always the singer, not the song. If you try to break down the 'they' to individuals, the Apple 'they' isn't the same anchored-over-time group attached to that brand as the 'they' that is attached to the Stone's brand.

If you simply want to state that the marketplace brings similar tasks and tension, fine, but then it's about branding, fans and being able to maintain what was good in the first place with what's worth adding, and over time, all brands have that in

It's utility is fairly limited on a phone. Video decoding/encoding is all handled by the GPU. Photo editing maybe? Even on the desktop most apps gained very little, something like 5% in typical game/app benchmarks.

well why don't you tell then what are the advantages in mobile setting? it's not like you need to use 64bit units for anything on it or even would want to use and all extra instructions, dsp's and what have you integrated in it don't need it to be "64bit".

(and is this the sort of arm that has 48bit address space or what?)

what apple did was just throw it out there that 64bits is 2x 32bits and so it is 2x faster. that's bullshit.

In fact, Apple's latest iPhone announcement seems to have been greeted with a massive "ho hum" instead of the frenzied interest some of their earlier product announcements have created.

I've seen the same kind of statements from ALL the releases since the first iPhone. Incremental. Siri was about the only thing that created a 2nd iPhone buzz.....until all the youtube vids of Siri choking badly.

what kinds of products might help people get excited about Apple again

I think you're getting a little ahead of time here. Your description is where Apple will be if their only major new platform the next three years is the smart watch.

It's fairly likely, like they speculate in TFV, that Apple has an answer to Google Glass in their R&D pipeline. If that product turns out to be better than Glass then Apple would probably be back in the spotlight again. Wearables look like a market that Apple would find easy to dominate since it's a lot about style and other fussy qualities

One time market leader in smartphones?On a volume basis, now #2 worldwide, and that's against much cheaper (and even free) phones sold. On a profit basis, by far #1.

Main product has been eclipsed by more nimble competitors?Apple releases once per year. Given the fast pace of phone technology, in that time it is likely one of their many competitors will release something better in various ways. Apple just release again, eclipsing them. The leapfrog game will continue.

On a volume basis, now #2 worldwide, and that's against much cheaper (and even free) phones sold. On a profit basis, by far #1.
As was Blackberry.

Apple releases once per year. Given the fast pace of phone technology, in that time it is likely one of their many competitors will release something better in various ways. Apple just release again, eclipsing them. The leapfrog game will continue.
Releasing a product every year is not the same as innovating, let alone keeping pace with more nimble players

You keep trotting out this "more nimple players" that are cooler thing. I don't see them. Samsung? Big, slow, selling cheaply built phones with various half-baked features haphazardly thrown in. They've been in such a race to copy Apple that their stores at one point were an Apple Store copy down to accidentally including Apple logos. HTC? About the same for the phones. Google/Moto is now just starting to do something interesting, but we'll have to see where that goes.

The trouble with Apple is they have become just another electronics company have been since they changed the name to Apple Inc, and they are getting their asses handed to them in that market, by established companies, who simply outperform them. In reality they are just the iPhone company, and they are trying(bless 'em) to innovate in that market its , and that market is becoming increasingly fragile.

How about they try to revolutionise their neglected computing line?How about they sell their OS, looking why

This event was about phones. They wanted media focus on phones. Other product announcements will be made at other events about those product lines. How do you get the media to write less about your phone? You give them other things to fill column inches with.

How about they sell their OS, looking why iWork failed before?

They did licensing to clone makers before, and it practically killed the company because none of the clone makers had the R&D costs that Apple did in order to make the OS and hardware to begin with. It works for Google because Google cares about ad impressions, and not hardware sales.

How about they buy Dell; Nintendo; Nokia; Netflix?

Dell (the company) is already being bought by Dell (the guy). Besides, what value would purchasing Dell add?Apple is already beating Nintendo by accident. What value would purchasing Nintendo add?Nokia is already being bought by Microsoft; and Microsoft isn't even getting the patent portfolio which is one of the reasons to buy Nokia.Netflix is an interesting proposition, but they also aren't for sale.

How about competing with Office instead of limiting it to their products?

Apple has long had a strategy of not making products that already have useful versions available, where they have nothing to add. This is why they never attempted to go after Exchange. Going after Microsoft Office is the same - there's nothing to add in a compelling or novel way, and it's the biggest uphill battle in the world because of the entrenched nature of Microsoft Office.

They never went after Adobe Creative Suite either because it's a fully functional suite of tools for doing print layout and photograph editing. However, After Effects was a piece of shit (back in the day) so Final Cut Pro was born, along with Motion, DVD Studio Pro, Soundtrack Pro, LiveType, and Compressor.

How about they compete against Amazon; Facebook; Google search and advertising?

They compete against Amazon where it makes sense - music, Apple merchandise, books, video.There is no reason to compete against Facebook - it's far easier to just work with them; and you can ask Google how that social media competition is working out for them.They do compete against Google in mobile advertising. It's called iAd.

How about they they do a Netbook or a Console; Car Radio?

Netbooks are traditionally underperforming stale technology at razor thin margins which would erode Apple's most valuable asset - their brand. Besides, Apple does compete with Netbooks - it's called the iPad. iPad launched, Netbook market evaporated overnight.Apple's full living room strategy is yet to be realized - the Apple TV is a self-proclaimed "hobby" which clearly shows promise for much more, if they decide to do it.iOS in the Car was announced at WWDC in June, and has a list of manufacturers on board to ship in 2014.

How about they buy or build a University or Manufacturing facilities?

They used to do their own manufacturing way back when, and it's much more convenient and scalable to pay people that have core competencies in manufacturing to do the manufacturing. That's why everyone does it that way, not just Apple.

They used to do their own manufacturing way back when, and it's much more convenient and scalable...

The event was a disaster. It is why this topic has come up, and many more will in future, and the investors growl "innovation" more and more. Apple over promised and under delivered and it having the worst drop in stocks since year start reflected that.

They failed selling their OS before (so they should give up?), yet suddenly we have Google walk into the market with Android and Chrome OS to even threaten Apple at the top end of the market with the incredible Pixel, arguing its stupid (which financially it

East Asian, and particularly South Korean, competitors have faster product cycle times based on Japanese kaizen (incessant incremental improvement).
Give Apple's long product cycles and limited number of models, the only way the company can compete is by making quantum leaps in technology.
All it takes is one missed cycle to become uncompetitive. Ask Motorola and Blackberry.

And that's what really annoys me when I see idiots complaining after every refresh that Apple will just release a new model in just a few weeks or months with minor changes. I don't challenge valid criticisms, like outrageous price bumps for more storage, they're falling behind on wanted features (a consequence of taking TOO LONG to release new models), or even their suppliers' working conditions (though they are hypocritically silent when told the working conditions are as bad or worse at their competitors

This is blog-itis. No, really. The phones these days are so bloody wonderful that apart from adding a Fleshlight and 3D holograms, what the heck else do you want. This is a 64-bit hand-held device with an amazing display and good battery life that reads porn to you. People "complaining" about the top end phones are manufacturing criticisms about minor issues of the mountain-from-a-molehill variety.

Tell me what specifically this (or any other phone of its calibre) is missing that is so wrong? The columnist is saying he's not jazzed by the recent unveiling. So what? Does he mean like most product announcements like cars, televisions and airplanes? How is this Apple's/Google's fault? These are now mature products that, like cars, will differ in the fenders but not in the operation.

The phones these days are so bloody wonderful that apart from adding a Fleshlight and 3D holograms, what the heck else do you want.

There have already been several phones with 3D displays, didnt seem to be something people were really interested in.

And, uhm, i heard fanbois of the various smartphone vendors love their phones, but seriously, you know a marketing slogan like "Life Companion" probably wasnt meant you should actually, well, do that bees and flowers stuff with a phone.

This is a 64-bit hand-held device with an amazing display and good battery life

And by amazing you mean similar or inferior to every other high end cell phone currently on the market. Ditto for good battery life. At best, the display and battery life are par. At worst, they are less and are competing with phones that came to market months before the 5S.

Are you kidding? The screen is sub-par, most other phones have gone HD with at least 720p now. As for new/missing features, how about NFC, or a proper notification LED, or widgets, proper Google Now (or Apple Now) integration, some different form factors, a TV tuner...

He is disappointed because there are significantly better phones. Better looking, more features. People used to expect Apple to lead, but the iPhone 5 looked out of date when it launched and the 5S has only fallen further behind. The "wow" fac

Apple took ideas from Xerox and others, and put them together in a commercially-successful way. Xerox did make some money from Apple's popular work via stock.The Stones took music from black blues musicians and some pop flavor, and found commercially success. The blues musicians did make some money from the Stones' bringing their music into the mainstream.

Steve Jobs got screwed out of his own company after initial success in part by youth and immaturity.The Stones got screwed out of their own pre-1971 copyrights by Allen Klein, and paid "the price of an education."

Apple was sliding into obscurity without Steve Jobs. Neither did as well apart.The Stones were sliding into obscurity in the 80s when Mick Jagger went solo, leaving Keith Richards to play with his own new band. Neither was a great success solo.

Early Apple founder Ronald Wayne is largely forgotten after he sold his share and left.The Stones founding guitarist Brian Jones is largely forgotten after he left the band and died shortly after.

Originally, The Verve had negotiated a licence to use a sample from the Oldham recording, but it was successfully argued that the Verve had used "too much" of the sample. Despite having original lyrics... [t]he matter was eventually settled, with copyright of the song reverting to Abkco. Songwriting credits were changed to Jagger/Richards/Ashcroft, with 100% of royalties going to the Rolling Stones.

First off, I don't own an apple anything. I was apparently the only person in the known universe who did not find the original iPod to be intuitive to use. I am too cheap to buy an iPhone. I despise Apple mice and have no use for an iPad. On top of that I also don't think they've made a relevant computer since switching form G5 CPUs to Intel.

That said, I think they did just fine bringing attention to themselves with their most recent conference. Even NPR covered it and mentioned the reduced price iPhone 5R and the fact that it has a plastic cover instead of a metal one. We've seen news of people already getting in line to buy one at various places around the world.

So while it might not be the most exciting announcement in history, it seems to have done what they wanted to do (sell more crap) just fine.

The media is still used to lazy stories covering Apple announcements, but look at the market's response. Apple stock down sharply because although the 5C is cheaper, it is far from cheap enough to make much of a dent in the Chinese market.

The reaction online has been extremely underwhelming. Remember when there would be thousands of stories, every social media platform would be flooded, Slashdot posts would get 1000+ comments? If anything there has been more buzz about the Moto X lately, and I think the Nex

When I read the headline, I thought of baby boomers - the only people who care about the Rolling Stones, but also the ones happily overpaying to be part of that brand. When I think of Apple products...the same thing is kind of true: it's the 50-and-up crowd who tries to impress people with their shiny new iPhone or iPad, whereas the rest of us pretty much couldn't care which Chinese factory built our tech as long as we can get a strong wifi signal.

If a company thinks they need "rabid excitement" amonst a bunch of raving fanbois to remain relevant, their business model is screwed up.

All a successful company requires is a loyal and steady customer base, not rabid fans. Do you see anybody lining up for IBM's products? Yet who is one of the biggest IT providers in the world? With a stable income?

Obviously we don't have the data for the iPhone 5S and 5C yet, but based on every single previous iDevice release ever, I don't think Apple has a problem with people not being excited. People have been buying their products in ever-increasing numbers for over a decade now.

The people who are vocally un-excited are the pundits. You know, the ones who, in order to keep money coming in, have to keep writing about something amazing and new that gets people excited—or about some scandal. The ones who are quite happy to compare existing Apple products to rumoured or vaguely announced future Samsung, Google, or Microsoft products—and compare their own straw-man versions of rumoured future Apple products to current and rumoured future products from competitors—and in all cases, find Apple's products wanting, no matter how many convolutions and fabrications they have to go through to achieve that.

I'm honestly not sure whether to believe the more paranoid people who have alleged it to be deliberately orchestrated, but there has certainly been a smear campaign targeting Apple...approximately since it failed to produce the iHolodeck on schedule the day people stopped being interested in reading about the release of the iPad. If you pay any attention to it—and read it without a raging anti-Apple prejudice—it's pretty obvious that there is a huge volume of "Apple is DOOOOOOMED" articles being written with practically no evidence to back up any of the (often quite wild) claims made in them.

And yes, I realize that one of the factions on Slashdot right now does, in fact, have a raging anti-Apple prejudice, but come on, people; this is supposed to be a site for smart people. Turn on your brains a little, quit the knee-jerk reactions, and actually apply a little critical thinking when you see someone writing about how the smartphone that Apple will not even announce for months has already failed and doomed the company, or other similar such ridiculous notions.

Nothing recently, and when all your cash is in high margin early adopter markets, and your current markets are saturated, with stronger competitors, well they needed something better than what happened this 10th

Your comment just came up when I was metamoderating (I miss the old system) and I gave the mods a good grade.

I can see why the pundits are unexcited, the single thing a new iPhone will do that an Android won't is the fingerprint thing. I just got a new Kyocera Edge and the women at Felbers with iPhones were ooing and aahing over it.

Of course, their iPhones were big and clunky because they had those protective things on them because breaking them would be so expensive, while mine easily slips in a pocket. If

I think the real buzz kill is the massive leaks, rumors and speculation of what apple is doing compounded by their secrecy, and lack of being able to be first to market due to their desire to be the best which makes it take longer to execute and allows for only incremental updates to existing products.

I appreciate apple's due diligence to make amazing products which have the best overall complete end-to-end experience for consumers hands down. But with the leaks happening it's letting people speculate and

Apple's biggest problem is that unlike in the past where their products were kept secret, their products are available before they are even announced because they rely on the supposed trust of their Chinese factories.

As soon as Apple realises this blunder and brings manufacturing home the better. I don't want to know what the next iPhone will look like until the keynote speech and all the hard work that goes into it to woo the public.

...and The iPhone market share continues to slip. It is currently at an all time low. This launch was different it was about launching an iPhone in markets with little or no subsidies because Europe and America is Saturated. The $700 Plastic China Phone is a joke; 730 Million potential subscribers got on with buying android.

As for them making great products, so so their competitors. I would say better.